Kirsten Niehuus has been the Managing Director of the Film Funding Department of the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg since 2004. Prior to that she worked in the film industry in various positions including as a lawyer for the German national film fund - Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA) in Berlin and then as the acting director of the FFA. She was also the German representative to Eurimages as well as its vice-president for two years. She is a board member of various institutions, such as German Films, the Deutscher Filmförderfonds (DFFF) and the Kuratorium der Berliner Filmhochschule (dffb). From 2012 until July 2016 she served as a member of the ZDF-Fernsehrat.

At the Medienboard Niehuus has been responsible for initiating various new programmes and policies such as „Leuchtstoff“ that supports newcomers and graduating students, artist-in-residence partnerships and co-production development funds with Poland, Turkey and Russia. In 2013 she was honored with the French order “Chevalier of Arts and Literature” and in 2014 became honorary professor at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf where she teaches film funding and film policy.